


Tell Me

by RedTeamShark



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Author Chose Not To Tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-06
Updated: 2014-04-08
Packaged: 2019-09-12 04:15:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16865941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedTeamShark/pseuds/RedTeamShark
Summary: I was born unable to physically feel—no pain, no heat, no cold. It didn’t stop me from expressing myself, though. If anything, it enhanced that.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Proper warnings, tags, etc, may come in the future. For the time being I'm frantically transferring my content to a stable platform amidst growing concerns about tumblr's inevitable implosion.
> 
> Apologies for flooding the fandom page.

So just for a minute, imagine this:

You don’t feel pain.

A needle in your skin doesn’t make you flinch, even when the blood wells up around it.

Walking barefoot across a parking lot during the hottest part of July isn’t an issue.

Running a hand through your hair results in ripping out a huge chunk of it, only realizing it when you see the blood-smeared locks on your palm.

Your asshole older brother’s playful shove causes you to trip and break your arm. Your parents only notice when you’re unable to climb into your bunk bed because your arm just won’t move the way it’s supposed to anymore.

Oh, and the kicker? You don’t feel heat or cold, either.

You live in a house with a carefully moderated temperature. Get too hot and you end up in the emergency room, doctors rushing to cool you down and prevent hyperthermia from setting in. Get too cold and it’s the same situation, the emergency room and the fight against hypothermia. Going outside requires the careful consideration of the temperature and humidity levels, because your body doesn’t sweat to cool off. You just get hotter and hotter, unaware of it.

You have to carefully monitor your diet to make sure that you eat enough food in a day, because it’s easy to forget when you don’t feel the pangs of hunger. The same monitoring helps you know when you should take a trip to the bathroom, because your body can’t tell you when you have to take a piss.

Doesn’t sound very fun, I know.

But it’s how I live. Every day the same careful routine, the same series of checks.

Wake up in the morning and thoroughly inspect myself in the mirror—no new scratches that need to be cleaned, no new bruises, no joints at improper angles. Check tongue and gums for damage. Check for eye injuries. Take my temperature—orally and rectally, just in case—to verify that I’m in a safe range. Run the calculation on how long I can stay outside in the current weather conditions, how much water I need to drink, everything. Void the bladder and bowels (check to make sure it’s actually been done). Prepare breakfast. Having something cooked? Carefully check the temperature to make sure that it’s cooked thoroughly and not too hot to safely consume.

Go to work. Double-check the temperature in the office. Make sure there’s a thermometer (oral only) on the desk.

See my boyfriend.

Hold his hand and feel the pressure of him squeezing mine. Feel the pressure of his fingertips on my face—memorizing me, seeing me in his head.

“You’re warm today, Michael.” Gavin whispers, smiling and rubbing his thumb over my cheek.

“I checked this morning, I’m in normal range.” I lean into his touch, turning to kiss his palm.

“Yeah, but your cheeks are warm. The rest of you is normal. I think you’re blushing.” His voice is teasing, so I give him a gentle shove.

“Why would I be blushing, idiot? Just because you’re here?”

“Well, why else?” He laughs and I grin, wrapping my arms carefully over his shoulders, pulling him in for a kiss. I may not be able to feel pain, or heat, or cold, but I can feel the pressure of his lips on mine, the moist way his tongue slides into my mouth.

And I can see the way his face lights up when we press that much closer together, the spark in his eyes when one of his hands cups my cheek. We have to part ways—making out at work isn’t exactly an approved-of activity—but we keep our hands locked together, my thumb running over his knuckles.

“Love you, Gavin.” I whisper, knowing he can hear me over the general ruckus of the office.

“Yeah. You too, Michael.”

He hasn’t said it back, yet, hasn’t outright said that he loves me. Always ‘you too, Michael’ when I say it.

But that’s okay. I can wait.

One of these days, Gavin will wear his emotions as openly as I wear mine… at least around me.


	2. Show Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was born blind—told from the very start that I was lacking something that was supposed to be the norm. The lack of sight didn’t stop me from understanding the world around me, though… I just did it in a different way.

Not being able to see isn’t really a hindrance.

I suppose that if you’ve had sight your whole life and it’s suddenly taken away, it could be problematic—you have to learn to exist in a way that’s completely different from what you’re used to. If I was suddenly able to see, I’m sure I’d have trouble with it.

For me, though, it’s never been there. I’ve never been able to see and I’ve been told from the day I was born that I never would. The world has always been blackness to me, existing as sounds, smells, tastes, and textures only.

Like the sound of a crowded subway, individual conversations blurring into background noise, the sharp exclamation of stops present and future. The smell of a mall food court on a Saturday afternoon, a million people with a million meals. The taste of a dinner cooked by Geoff, each savory flavor gliding easily into the next—he knows how to make a plate for a blind man to enjoy, and is absurdly smug about it.

And texture. If it’s true that lack of vision gives you an enhancement somewhere else, it’s in my sense of touch. Feeling the subtle change in heat when someone is closer to me, or knowing just by placing my hand on their skin that they’re happy, or sad, or worried, or angry.

Feeling the pulse in Michael’s palm speed up when I kiss him.

I’ve never thought about actually seeing before, experiencing the world as a visual thing. But when I’m with Michael, running my fingers through his hair, kissing him, listening to him whisper in my ear… it’s like I  _can_  see.

He’ll tell me what’s happening around us, the subtle changes in everyone’s facial features, body language, positions—all the things that, without the benefit of touch, I really am blind to. He’ll sit with me in the park on a bench, describing everything around us to me—the number of people that pass by, what they’re doing, what the trees and the grass and the sky all look like. He’s amazing at it, he makes me feel like I’m  _seeing_  the things he describes.

“Michael?”

“Yeah, Gavin?” His head on my shoulder, warm but not too warm. There’s a light breeze keeping the worst of the heat away today and he won’t have to go inside for at least another ten minutes.

“What’s blue?” I’m always asking him questions like this—things that I’ve heard of, but don’t understand. Colors, mostly, but occasionally other things.

He’s quiet for a while, a low hum leaving his lips. His fingers work against my knee, back and forth, tracing a pattern there.

“Have you ever had a picnic on a day in early spring? Sat on a blanket under the sky with the wind blowing just a little, but the sun is… is warm on your skin?” It’s hard for him, too, because what he’s describing he’s never actually felt. Michael’s never really experienced the sun warming his skin, just the dreadful side-effects of it happening too intensely.

“Yeah.” I agree, lacing our fingers together and squeezing gently. “I did that about a month ago with Geoff.”

“When you turn your face up to the sky and breathe in a deep breath of that spring air, it makes you feel…  _light_. Like you could just float away. That’s blue.”

My head tips back automatically, my chest expanding as I pull in a big lungful of air. “Blue.” I sigh out, turning and kissing his forehead. “I like blue.”

“I like  _you_.” He murmurs, his lips traveling across my skin, touching my lips. “I love you, Gavin.”

“Yeah.” I whisper, carding a hand through his hair. “You too, Michael.”

He shows me the world, and I show him how much I love him.


End file.
